


A Cynical Soul

by adarkwintersday



Series: Hide Those Ears [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Episode: s02e05 Amok Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:51:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7752904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adarkwintersday/pseuds/adarkwintersday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amok Time.  Some things are hard to miss...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cynical Soul

 

‘There’s just one thing, Mr Spock.  You can’t tell me that, when you first saw Jim alive, you weren’t on the verge of an emotional scene that would have brought the house down.’

‘Merely my - quite _logical_ \- relief, that Starfleet hadn’t lost a highly proficient Captain.’

 

Spock is staring at the air, Captain Kirk is staring at Spock’s cheekbones, and McCoy is staring at them both.

 

‘Yes, Mr Spock.  I understand.’  

‘Thank you, Captain.’

 

The Captain’s voice is playful - he gets the joke.  But his eyes have a startlingly giddy look.

 

‘Of course, Mr Spock,’ says the Doctor drily.  ‘Your reaction was quite logical.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

 

McCoy watches the pair of them head for the door together, with fascination.  Do neither of them have _any idea_ \- _?_

 

‘In a _pig’s eye._ ’ he says out loud.  Invoking an old expression, because suddenly he feels like his father.

 

And they both stop in the doorway.  Puzzled, and un-self-conscious, and so _blatantly_ -

 

But let them figure it out for themselves.   

 

He had his heart broken over a decade ago.  So hopelessly, desperately broken that, since surviving - like an amputee who has become used to the matter, he barely gives it a thought.  There was the business on M-113, of course.  But he has come to think of that as shadow-play.  As painful, but as insignificant, as the vivid dreams he sometimes has.

 

Sometimes he taxes himself with being a cynical old soul.  And yet - 

 

Jim has been a friend for over ten years.  A good drinking-partner, and a brilliant captain - and a man with all the emotional intelligence of a twelve-year-old.

 

And Spock, frankly, drives the doctor up the wall.  All that staggering intelligence, that super-human intellect - crippled by a green-blooded fear of the unknown.

 

‘Come on, Spock.  Let’s go mind the store.’  

 

And they disappear like gleeful schoolboys.  

 

So utterly, clearly in love with each other that he wonders why the whole ship hasn’t noticed - let alone why they haven’t figured it out themselves.

 

 

~

 

 

It’s shortly after the episode on Vulcan that Nurse Chapel gets the point.

 

Popping into Sick Bay, late one evening, McCoy finds her slumped at the desk with the medicinal brandy.

 

He puts a fatherly (he hopes) hand on her shoulder.  ‘Christine?’

And she says, numbly, ‘He’s in love with the _Captain_.’

Asking _who?_ would be insulting.  

 

McCoy pulls up a chair, and pours himself a drink.

‘I’m sorry, Christine.’

She shakes her head.  ‘It isn’t fair.’

‘Love isn’t, my dear.’

‘No, I mean - not for me.  For him.’

 

McCoy pauses.  He’s a discreet man - the repository of probably more than half the ship’s secrets.  But Nurse Chapel, he thinks, deserves - 

 

‘Christine, I think - I don’t think the feeling’s exactly one-sided.’

Her startled blue eyes meet his.  ‘But they’re not - ’

‘No,’ he says.  ‘Not yet.’

 

If she’s going to feel humiliated, he thinks, better here, drinking surgical spirits with this old man, than later, and in public.  

 

She downs a good two inches.  And her narrow face is surprisingly fierce.

 

‘You’re telling me I never stood a chance.’

‘It’s a very big galaxy,’ he says.  ‘Someday, you’ll meet someone else.’

And that’s when her face flickers, and collapses.

‘There’s no-one,’ she says, ‘like _him_.’

 

A statement which even the doctor can’t argue with.


End file.
